Category Archives: Autodesk Civil3d

If you receive a drawing from a Civil3D user, there is a possibility it contains CogoPoints that appear locked. You can’t move them, you can’t rotate them, etc. Since you don’t have the Survey Database you can’t unlock them like the original creator did. If this happens to you, read on.

The process of importing contours from shapefiles is actually a two step process, since the results from Autodesk’s MAPIMPORT command does not elevate the resulting polylines. This is a step-by-step procedure on how to take a shapefile of contours to elevated polylines in AutoCAD (Map/Civil3D).

Deleting parcels (by name) in Civil3D can sometimes be difficult. Right clicking the parcel name doesn’t work, erase on the parcel label does nothing. Here is a step-by-step procedure to quickly delete multiple parcels by name, without picking a single segment.Read More →

When we worked up our procedure for importing Lidar into Civil3D a couple months ago, we realized there were way too many steps and way too many hoops to jump through. Hoops preparing the data, through Recap to prepare a RCP/RCS, through Civil3D creating a point cloud, and finally creating the surface. Highly trained professionals have more important things to do with their time than spend it like a well trained circus animal jumping through hoops, so we did something about it.

Like many things in Civil3D, they can be done but how it’s done isn’t so obvious. In the process of adding a DEM surface to your drawing you may notice that you can’t project it to another coordinate system (that of the drawing). Here is a step-by-step procedure including assigning a coordinate system to the current drawing.

A popular request is to export geometry in a Civil3D drawing to Google Earth in a KML/KMZ format. This post contains details on how to do it, with a step-by-step procedure for Civil3D. For recent versions of Civil3D, you will want to use the EXPORTKML command because it will support the most object types (including AECC objects). However it has some quirks and this procedure may help iron them out.

A frequent question is how to import Lidar data like LAS/LAZ or other point cloud formats into Civil3D. Here is a step by step procedure on the process, using Civil3D 2018 as the target. The procedure assumes you have your Lidar data files downloaded and ready in a folder.